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Opinions Appreciated

Below is a link to a lathe that I found. Any information concerning capabilities,condition and price would be greatly appreciated. This would be my first lathe and a huge learning process. I do understand that the tooling is usually a much graeter cost that the lathe itself.

Not much center-to-center distance on that old gal, but well worth what is being charged. Probably would handle 75% of what you would be wanting a lathe for and as long as you were considering it as a first lathe it should be well worth it and have your cash outlay easily recovered down the line. Belt drive will keep you from dodging shrapnel on a crash...

Not much center-to-center distance on that old gal, but well worth what is being charged. Probably would handle 75% of what you would be wanting a lathe for and as long as you were considering it as a first lathe it should be well worth it and have your cash outlay easily recovered down the line. Belt drive will keep you from dodging shrapnel on a crash...

Did anyone see a compound in the photo because I did not? If there is not one with the lathe are they costly and readily available?
Thanks,
Nick

I think you can see it in the 6th picture down or so. The tool holder that is in it is the lantern style, but is sitting right on the dovetail. It should have a semi spherical washer and wedge set up to adjust the tool holder, or better yet, just pick up a QC tool post

Did anyone see a compound in the photo because I did not? If there is not one with the lathe are they costly and readily available?
Thanks,
Nick

I don't see a compound rest there. Best to ask the seller if it is a concern. They are nice but there is lots of machining you can do without it. From looking at the pictures I would say that you would have to change the cross slide to incorporate a compound rest otherwise the tooling may be too high to work properly. A compound rest gives you the angles but they are often less robust than the heavy-duty cross slide I see here. That means they may flex under heavy service when the straight cross slide may not. You could always get a milling attachment and build them(shorter cross slide and compound). Might be a fun learning experience and it still looks like a deal to me.---Meltedmetal

Just a quick update on the lathe. I wanted to thank everyone for their input. On Monday evening I took a look at it and got cold feet. The lathe was in pieces and under his house in a makeshift shop. I asked him how he got it in there and he said he placed it on a piece of plywood made a hole in it and drug it with a come along. The more I looked at it and the more I considered the information you gave me (lack of compound) I decided against it.